I think it really depends on your specific set of skills. If you have a niche skill that a lot of $2-3 an hour programmers aren't going to be able to duplicate,

I think it really depends on your specific set of skills. If you have a niche skill that a lot of $2-3 an hour programmers aren't going to be able to duplicate, there will be a few higher paying gigs. I only joined oDesk recently but have already had some luck with Haskell development. If your primary skill is, say, PHP or Ruby you might have more trouble.